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Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) is collaborating with Adaptive Biotechnologies (Seattle, WA, USA) to help address the COVID-19 pandemic. The companies will combine their expertise to discover and develop fully human neutralizing antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 to potentially prevent or treat COVID-19. The mutually exclusive collaboration brings together Adaptive's proprietary immune medicine platform for the identification of virus-neutralizing antibodies with Amgen's expertise in immunology and novel antibody therapy development. Given the rapidly rising incidence of COVID-19 around the world, the companies will begin work immediately and finalize financial details and terms in the coming weeks.

Amgen is committed to unlocking the potential of biology for patients suffering from serious illnesses by discovering, developing, manufacturing and delivering innovative human therapeutics. This approach begins by using tools like advanced human genetics to unravel the complexities of disease and understand the fundamentals of human biology. Adaptive is a commercial-stage biotechnology company focused on harnessing the inherent biology of the adaptive immune system to transform the diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Adaptive will extend its high throughput platform to rapidly screen the massive genetic diversity of the B cell receptors from individuals that have recovered from COVID-19. This enables the identification of tens of thousands of naturally occurring antibodies from survivors of COVID-19 to select those that neutralize SARS-CoV-2. Amgen will then leverage its world-class antibody engineering and drug development capabilities to select, develop and manufacture antibodies designed to bind and neutralize SARS-CoV-2. deCODE Genetics (Reykjavík, Iceland), a subsidiary of Amgen, will provide genetic insights from patients who were previously infected with COVID-19.

The two companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to enable the parties to start work immediately and are planning to execute a Collaboration and License Agreement. Both the companies aim to accelerate the development of a potential antibody against COVID-19 as fast as possible for patients in need.

"Our strong history of collaboration with Adaptive gives us the ability to immediately mobilize our combined resources to help address the urgency in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. After swiftly obtaining viral gene sequences from hundreds of patients, Amgen was motivated to use these insights and quickly pair them with our drug development and manufacturing capabilities. Working with Adaptive and using their viral-neutralizing antibody platform will expedite our ability to bring a promising new medicine into clinical trials as quickly as possible," said Robert A. Bradway, chairman and chief executive officer at Amgen.